Prince William and Kate Middleton: Unveiling the Royal Romance Max Mumby/indigo/Getty Images We may receive a commission on purchases made through links. While studying at St. Andrews University, Prince William encountered the woman who would become his wife and future queen, Kate Middleton.
“When I first met Kate, I knew there was something very special about her, and then I knew there was possibly something I wanted to explore there, but we ended up being friends for a while,” William once told reporters. Their platonic friendship, however, did not last for too long as the pair soon began dating. In 2004, their relationship went public. “She is his girlfriend,” a source confirmed to People after William and Middleton were spotted looking rather cozy at a ski resort in Switzerland. And then, in October 2010, after about seven years together, Prince William popped the big question during a trip to Kenya.
The notorious sheer dress, designed by Charlotte Todd, sold at auction in 2011, the year of Will and Kate’s wedding, for a whopping £78,000, according to the BBC. The buyer, known only as “Nick from Jersey,” said it was an “iconic piece” and that he was “happy with the purchase.” Prior to being put on the auction block, the dress sat “in a box at the bottom of [Todd’s] mother’s wardrobe for eight years.” Of the small fortune her risqué design earned her, Todd said, “I’m completely shocked, I need to sit down and get my head around it. According to Marcia Moody’s biography (via Parade), Kate Middleton and Prince William split in 2007, after the couple began spending more and more time apart and Kate had grown frustrated with William’s bar-hopping ways. The breakup reportedly left Kate heartbroken and devastated; after all, according to Moody, there had been talk about a royal wedding. However, as is often the case with young love, Moody writes that the couple got back together within a few months. In 2010, Kate and Will reflected on their breakup in a high-profile interview with The Telegraph. “I, at the time, wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person,” Kate said, adding, “You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realized.” She continued, “You can get quite consumed by a relationship when you are younger. I really valued that time, for me as well, although I didn’t think it at the time, looking back on it.
Prince William spoke of how important it was for him to give Kate Middleton enough time to acclimate to public life. “I’m trying to learn from lessons done in the past, and I just wanted to give her the best chance to settle in and see what happens on the other side,” he said. Kate explained how she drew inspiration from William’s mother, Princess Diana. Kate’s top goal in joining the royal family was to hopefully “make a difference, even in the smallest way.” Of course, Kate took on royal life in a way that exceeded expectations. Part of that may have had to do with the “two-year grace period from public life” that they were granted from the queen after their wedding, so they could have a little breathing room and enjoy married life for a while. According to Vanity Fair, this two-year period was an idyllic portrait of matrimony, spent “on the Welsh island of Anglesey in a rented five-bedroom farmhouse.” But more on that in a moment.
